Hewlett Packard PA-8500 360 MHz processor

Advantages: Good list of features, slim, light and good value!
Disadvantages: No DVD-RW drive, no floppy, no volume keys, little software included.

...experience this has been a problem on TFT displays. The processor - This particular model has a intel Celeron M 360 1.4 GHz. This might sound a bit under powered. However at no point has the laptop slowed down or felt sluggish. Because this is a M model of the Celeron it is especially made for laptops so it very good on battery life. The memory - It has 256 Mb of DDR ram running at 333Mhz. This does feel about the right amount of memory for basic tasks under windows XP. However if you plan to use memory intensive applications I recommend adding another 256Mb. The hardrive - The hardrive is 40 Gb which is plenty big enough for most people. It is very quiet and cannot really be heard. The disc drive - This a DVD/CD-RW drive. It can read/write/re-write CDs at 24x which is more than adequate. However I feel the lack of a DVD-R is a bit... Read review

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Advantages: Light weight tiny Laptop
Disadvantages: As it 2 or 3 years old a bit slow

...We bought the Compaq Armada M300 as a Christmas present for our 13 year old daughter, mainly for 2 reasons, to run Microsoft Encarta to enable her to do her HOMEWORK! And to run the Sims, she’d been asking for this for about 2 years and we were loathed to load it on the family’s computer for fear that nobody else would get a look in! The Computer, we found on E-Bay for £145 plus £18 postage, we were not particularly looking for a Compaq, but rather any Laptop that had a processor that met the Sims minimum requirement ( that being PII 300). The Compaq far surpassed that! And so we went ahead and made the purchase via Paypal on Sunday night and much to our delight it arrive at 7.30am on Tuesday morning. The only problem, now was that the standard Compaq Armada comes without any external Drives and so we set about finding a CD... Read review

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Advantages: Fully installed and ready to go
Disadvantages: It installs extra software that is not needed

...This is another package from Hewlett Packard which at the time when bought out was reasonable priced. Nowadays you can pickup a package like this between £100 and £250 depending on any upgrades. Usually the processor is around 600mhz and can be upgraded to around 1000mhz. The only problem with this machine is of the L2 cache installed on the main board. The more L2 cache the quicker and easier the processor can handle information. The maximum memory my machine could take was 512mb but not sure on the higher spec machines. My machine came with a scrolling mouse which many machines didn't have. All machines that i knew of came with Windows 98 but this can be wiped and Windows 2000 or even XP can easily be installed with 128mb memory. My PC came installed with Windows 98 and a few other programs installed, these other programs were... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful